Croatia’s damning World Cup accusation

by Alex Blair

12th Jul 2018 10:59 AM

VICTORIOUS Croatia captain Luka Modric has taken aim at the disrespect shown to his side.

After the team's 2-1 win over England in their World Cup semi-final on Thursday (AEST), Modric accused pundits and the media of disrespecting Croatia by crowing about the chances of Gareth Southgate's men.

"People were talking … English journalists, pundits from television," Modric told ITV. "They underestimated Croatia tonight and that was a huge mistake.

"All these words from them we take, we were reading and we were saying, 'OK, today we will see who will be tired.' They should be more humble and respect their opponents more.

"We showed again that we were not tired - we dominated the game mentally and physically. We should have killed the game even before extra time.

Luka Modric was the architect of Croatia’s success.

"This is an amazing achievement for us - it's a dream come true after such a long time. We are in the final and that is the biggest success in Croatia history. We have to be proud."

Teammate Sime Vrsaljko also had a dig at football fans who had raved about a renewed England side that was different to the England teams who had crumbled under the weight of expectation in previous years.

"The all-round perception was that this is a new-look England who have changed their ways of punting long balls upfield, but when we pressed them it turned out that they haven't," he said.

Croatia has made history by reaching the World Cup final for the first time.